Heroes and Ghosts
by AmySparkles
Summary: He always hears her voice in his head. It's just another reminder that he's no Superman, but she already knew that.


A/N: The italics are either quotes from an episode or lyrics of the song 'Superman tonight' by Bon Jovi. Or in one case a fairy-tale. :) This was written as my first entry into the Nick fic song challenge over at TalkCSI.. Enjoy.. :)

He remembers being sixteen. It seemed like he had the world on his shoulders but he realises now that it was nothing compared to her. He would beg his Mom and Cisco for a car at least twice a week until one day his dad got so angry and annoyed with him that he threatened to throw him out of the house if he didn't stop complaining. That was the day he asked Dave, his boss at the supermarket in town, if he could have some extra hours. He started working the odd night stacking shelves while his Mom thought he was staying with his friend Billy. There was no way his overprotective mother would allow the baby of the family to work at night where someone could come in and do who knows what to him. He could never bring himself to tell her that his childhood had already been marked, she didn't need to look out for him.

He got mad at Cisco if he failed a biology test because he blamed him as the reason he didn't have enough time to study. Looking back he doesn't know why he could not have just waited to get a car when he was in college. He worried about getting another girlfriend and whether or not his coach would pick him for the next football game. She worried about whether everyone hated her. When he realised he had spent too much time partying and not enough time studying he stayed home every night and sat outside with his books, where he was away from his noisy brother and sisters until he got his grades back on track for college. She never got to go to college.

_'You're looking for a hero, but its just my old tattoo.'_

He can hear her voice at night. She didn't die yesterday but he still thinks about her and the choices she would be making. He thinks about the party's she would be going to and the new things she would be experiencing, the new friends she would make and the old ones she would lose. Last week he saw a girl with blonde curls walking along the street talking happily on her phone with her boyfriend or mother or best friend. He dropped his car keys when he thought for just a moment that it could have been her.

_'Its your baggage that's dragging you down.'_

The rain was pelting down when he last saw her. He remembers feeling the cold seeping through his jacket as every splash of rain hit him. She had changed so much, she wasn't the same content girl he had first met that sunny day asking about his name and the case. Her hair was so much darker and ironically it seemed to act as a mood ring. If he saw her and she was blonde then things weren't so bad but the first time he saw her black hair he should have known something was very wrong. Looking back he realised that nothing had stayed the same, not even the weather. Everything had changed so quickly, he should have noticed something wasn't right. He should have noticed she needed his help, that it wasn't just a teenage makeover, it was a cry for help. Wasn't it his job to notice the little things?

_'What happened?'_

After months of waiting her mother finally stood trial. He presented his evidence to the jury and so did everyone else that worked the case. The only difference was that they forgot about it then. They saved just a moment for her, questioning why something would happen to someone so young, but then they moved on and went home. They let it go along with every other case they had worked on that month. He went to the trial almost everyday, if it interrupted his working hours then he would tell Catherine that he had to go to the dentist. She started to get suspicious so she teased him about playing truancy but he fed her rehearsed lines about having to get root canal and how that can take a few appointments. It wasn't a complete lie, the experience was like pulling teeth and sometimes he needed a day or two to recover.

He wondered why no-one from court had mentioned seeing him, maybe they had and Catherine just didn't say anything. They had to have known though, he saw the looks she had given him and even Ray had acted strange. Maybe they had suddenly realised that he was just ordinary, he didn't have a cape tucked underneath his shirt or bullet-proof skin. It came as a small comfort to him, it was time everyone realised he wasn't a hero. Then they would stop looking to him to save everyone.

Haley knew he wasn't a hero.

'_Tonight I swear I'd sell my soul to be a hero for you.'_

It only gets too much when he answers her. Last night he punched his tiled wall because her voice was too loud. He screamed into the mist that the shower had created. _'I don't know what happened, it wasn't supposed to end that way.' _He needed to tell her that he didn't see it coming. It breaks his heart when he thinks that she probably assumed he had turned his back on her, just like everyone else. He needs to tell her that he didn't know it was going to happen. If he did he would have been there for her, he would have dragged her Mom away and kept her safe. He doesn't hate her like those other people. She still asks the same question every night before he goes to bed. It's how she says goodnight and she'll greet him the same way in the morning.

_'What happened?'_

When he's working on a case she stays silent, it's like she's observing him and figuring out how he dusts for prints or collects DNA. Sometimes he thinks that she's in training for her future career but then Nick caches himself and stops, she never will have a career. When his eyes start to stray from his work she speaks. Once he almost stepped on a bloody shoe print but her scream of those two familiar words stopped him. He saw the strange look Ray gave him when he forgot where he was and answered_ 'I don't know' _but he really didn't care. She helps him as much as she haunts him.

_'So what happened?'_

_'Well Haley, that's what I have to figure out.'_

He forgets sometimes that he only knew her over the course of a year. He started to wonder if she believed in fairy-tales as a child. He did, his Mom would tell him one every night before he fell asleep. He was always the first to go to bed in their house but he didn't mind because it meant that he got to spend some extra time with his Mom. He would get changed into his pyjamas and she would sit beside him with her back leaning against the wall and begin her story.

_'One day Nicky, a lonely prince was searching through his pockets and found a little lost girl and he was so amazed at how tiny she was that he ran to tell all of his friends about her. When he came back though she was gone and this made him sad so he left his kingdom to find her. As he searched for her he met other people who had lost someone and they asked him to help their loved ones. He helped everyone that asked for it but with each person he found he forgot a little bit more about the lost girl until eventually he couldn't remember anything about her. She got further away but he knew it was his job to find her...'_

Nick would always start to drift off before his mother finished the story but before he fell asleep, he would always ask his Mom why the prince found all the other people and not the lost girl. His mother would smile as she stroked his hair but her response would always be the same.

_'Because Nicky, sometimes people just fall through the cracks, you can't save everyone.'_

All of the little things and all of the big things are what makes a person, he had realised that years ago. When he decided he wanted to help others he promised himself that he would never let a person fall through the cracks because that's the worst thing that can happen. Nothing hurts more than having everyone give up on you. He could be that last person that stood there beside them. He was wrong though, fairy-tales aren't real and nobody wears tights and a cape.

_'Who's going to save you when the stars fall from your sky. And who's going to pull you in when the tide gets too high.'_

People still pretend though and he wishes he could aswell. He wishes Haley could pretend to her children that fairy-tales exist and grow old and tell her grandchildren about princes and Cinderella. He feels silly when he talks about fairy-tales as he lies awake at night, she would probably roll her eyes at him just like his niece but its all he's got and it seems to stop the constant question.

_'What happened? What happened? What happened?' _

The prince never did rescue the lost girl and Nick will forever hear Haley's voice in his head.

Hope you enjoyed it, feel free to let me know what you thought.. Good or bad..


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